Office: 11th District Court of Appeals
Age: 48
Residence: Concord Twp, OH
Email: djklammer@klammerlaw.com
Website: http://voteklammer.com/, https://www.facebook.com/daryaklammerforJudge/
Occupation: Attorney; Magistrate, Mentor Municipal Court
Education: J.D., cum laude, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law
Work Experience: Attorney since 1997. Assistant prosecuting attorney for the Geauga County Prosecutor 1999-2003. Partner at The Klammer Law office Ltd, since 2003. Magistrate in Mentor Municipal Court since 2008.
Family: Married with two teenage children
Affiliations: Lake County Bar Association 1997-present: Executive Board, Past President; Family Law Committee, Co-Chair; Supreme Court Swearing-In Committee, Co-chair; Women’s Outreach, Co-Chair; Law Day Committee, member. Cleveland-Marshall Law Alumni Association, Life Member. Ashtabula County Bar Association, Member. Geauga County Bar Association, Member. Portage County Bar Association, Member. Trumbull Bar Association, Member. Ohio State Bar Association, Member. Lake County Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, Member. Mentor Schools Foundation Board, Past President, current Trustee.
Endorsements: Cleveland Building and Construction Trades Council; Ohio Association of Public School Employees, AFCSME; Ashtabula AFL-CIO; Mahoning Trumbull AFL-CIO; North Shore AFL-CIO; Youngstown-Warren Black Caucus; Lake, Geauga, and Trumbull Democratic Parties
Bar Association Ratings: Lake County Bar Association: “Highly recommended” https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58adcba3bebafb42b99cd079/t/5aeb2353758d46d026526ed7/1525359447140/LLV+APRIL+2018.pdf. Trumbull County Bar Association, rated “Preferred Candidate” http://www.tcba.net/
(1) List your judicial experience (courts and years):
I am a former Acting Judge in the Mentor Municipal Court. I am also a Magistrate in the Mentor Municipal Court since 2008. As a Magistrate and former Acting Judge, I have been hearing and deciding cases for over a decade. In addition to the day to day matters in every lawsuit, such as pretrials and motion hearings in civil cases, I preside over the actual trial in these cases. I also have the opportunity to preside over cases in small claims division where the Ohio Revised Code makes unique arrangements to help parties present their cases without the expense that comes with more complex disputes I see in the Court’s general division.
2) What about your non-judicial legal experience qualifies you to be a judge?
For more than twenty years, I have developed the type of experience necessary to be a great judge. The best judges bring with them the broadest experience from their career as a practicing lawyer. When I was an assistant prosecuting attorney for the Geauga County Prosecutor’s Office, I prosecuted everything from juvenile delinquencies to adult murder cases. Those cases are some of the most complicated an attorney can ever expect to handle. I would ultimately end that part of my law career as the Chief Assistant Prosecutor of the Criminal Division. Experience as a prosecuting attorney is important for one other reason. It was of the few areas of legal practice where an attorney has obligations to not only prosecutor crimes, but to ensure that victims of crime have their voices heard and that defendants are treated with fair and honest process. There are few other places for a candidate for judge to find this experience. Since my service as a prosecuting attorney, I have handled countless civil, criminal, juvenile and domestic relations cases in my private practice. Judges need this experience in a broad practice, not only to understand a wide area of law, but to understand better all the ways the law, courts and judges touch and effect peoples lives. I am also fortunate to have worked since 2008 deciding cases in the Mentor Municipal Court. Again, through that experience, I understand how important it is for people to have their story heard by an open mind. My work in private practice and in the public sector as an assistant prosecutor afforded me the opportunity to appear and argue before the Court of Appeals on many occasions. I have also appeared and argued before the Ohio Supreme Court. I am proud of my community involvement, both in and outside of the courtroom. As a trustee on the Mentor Schools Foundation, I work with educators to fund special programs to benefit students throughout the district. As an Executive Board member, I improved services and brought change to the Bar Association. As a co-founder of a Family Law Clinic, I helped fashion a clinic that makes the Court available to low and middle income families at no cost. Judge Falkowski and the clinic co-founders were invited to present on the clinic’s success at the National Conference of the American Bar Association.
(3) Why are you running for this particular court seat?
With the fear of sounding cliche, I just love being a lawyer. With over 20 years of experience, I have developed a certain patience and calm when helping people with legal and non-legal problems. On a daily basis, I give guidance to clients about non-legal matters because they trust the way I listen and understand problems, and how I try to provide for them the most efficient way to find a solution or to minimize their suffering. I am proud to say I am 48, a wife, and a mother to two teenage children. Over the past 20 plus years, my law practice has helped countless numbers of people. I would be honored to have the opportunity to dedicate the balance of my legal career reaching and helping people from a new perspective. I am really proud of the successes of the Family Law clinic for which I was a co-founder. It is amazing how patient thinking can find creative solutions that bring big change to families and then to the community. I am confident that I can bring to the court a unique perspective that will encourage parties to work toward finding solutions together through alternatives to ongoing litigation.